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The ECB’s response has been to take a painkiller approach of cutting interest rates to near zero and the buying up of government bonds.

Tim Focas, Parliament Street

Yesterday, the bloc’s Winter 2018 Interim Economic Forecast for gross domestic product growth and inflation for all the members of the 28-nation EU, said growth in the 19 countries sharing the euro would be 2.3 percent in 2018 and 2 percent in 2019.

However, last month the EU’s statistics office Eurostat estimated eurozone growth was 2.5 percent in 2017, suggesting a 0.2 percent slowdown in the year ahead.

One of the significant issues consuming leaders in Brussels is reportedly coming from German voices within the bloc’s policy programme who want an end the quantitative easing measures upon which the eurozone has become dependent.

But the end of central banks buying or selling government bonds could have major repercussions for the maintenance of Italy’s debt as she heads for the polls.

Bond markets are facing an uncertain period as Italy, the main beneficiary of quantitative easing, could well elect an anti-euro alliance of the radical Five Star Movement and the Right-wing Lega Nord, after the Five Star took at 27 percent lead in the polls.

Tim Focas, director of financial services at Westminster think tank Parliament Street says that although Europe is boasting of better-than-expected GDP growth results, there remains a number of risks from around the continent that could potentially spark another downturn.

Mr Focas said: “These latest growth figures are underpinned by that fact that the economic fundamentals of the eurozone are still not resilient enough to ride the next downturn.

“Greater European centralised money-creation and political integration has left national governments weaker over the past decade.

“At the height of the 2011 Eurozone meltdown, the risk of defaults pushed government borrowing costs through the roof and added greatly to the financial stress of nations.”

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Growth in the 19 countries sharing the euro will be 2.3 percent in 2018

The Daily Telegraph reported the sudden sell-off on Wall Street and across global bourses over recent days suggests that a liquidity squeeze is already underway.

Tim Congdon, from the Institute of International Monetary Research, told the newspaper “everybody knows that the nation being bailed out by QE is Italy, so this is a fundamental problem for the ECB”.

He said: “We are undoubtedly going to see a tapering of global growth in 2018 because of the actions already taken by central banks to reverse QE.

“I don’t expect a recession because central banks will have to change course once they see the numbers weakening.”

Mr Focas sounds a further warning to the EU’s continuing pursuit of full economic and political integration.

He said: "The ECB’s response has been to take a painkiller approach of cutting interest rates to near zero and the buying up of government bonds.

“The problem with this approach across a monetary blog is that it requires full alignment between economic and political institutions.

“If President Macron’s dream of a euro-area style government comes true, then event greater political and economic integration could be just around the corner.”